Unexpected Companionship
by Wood.White
Summary: Having experienced enough hardships than she thinks she can take after the death of her godfather, Harry expresses a desire to commit the unforgivable. Surprisingly, the most unexpected individual makes her rethink her alternatives. (One-Shot) (Fem!Harry Potter) (Fenrir Greyback)


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

 **Warning: Fem!Harry AU, Fenrir Greyback, OOC**

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 **Unexpected Companionship (One-Shot)**

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Had her birth really been the cause of such calamities? Had her existence angered some narcissistic divinity in the skies so much that it warranted the death of so many of her loved ones? If so, then why didn't it just claim her life instead? Why did it have to be those whose lives she valued more than her own? First her parents, then Cedric, and now her godfather as well.

Was it something specific causing such disasters to befall her, or was it purely coincidental that they surrounded her exclusively? Harry couldn't quite decide which one of those suggestions ached her the most. For whatever reason, she had come to accept the concept that it was her existence that warranted such unbearably painful outcomes, even if she didn't want to.

After all, those deaths previously mentioned had all been connected to one man– _NO_ , not a man. _A monster_. One that had returned from the deepest depths of hell solely to torment her, to remind her of the gruesome fates which befell her parents, to further have her succumb to the ideal fate of death.

 _Lord Voldemort_.

As Harry sat there alone by of the swings, having just narrowly escaped Piers Polkiss and his gang of fellow delinquents (though at the cost of a bloody nose), she came to relish her isolation she experienced on a daily. If she returned to that wretched place she could call anything but her home, she could expect facing Uncle Vernon's uncontainable rage for everything and anything again. Even the slightest transgression towards his boundaries could trigger an earthquake. Her aunt, although slightly more tolerant of Harry's presence, would do nothing to prevent her husband from going on yet another state of infuriation. Even though Dudley had stopped bullying Harry as much as he used to, he was not willing to defend her against his father's anger.

 _ **YOU SELFISH, INSUFFERABLE FREAK! GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!**_

And the reason behind her staying at Number Four, even though all she wanted more than anything was to run away to Ron or Hermione's place? _LORD VOLDEMORT._ Even though Professor Dumbledore had cast light upon the reasons which ultimately tied her to Privet Drive, it did little to ease Harry's resentment towards the place she had spent the majority of her childhood trapped within. As she recalled all the 'happy childhood memories' she contained from that house, more anger collected itself up inside of her, unknowingly causing her to bite the inside of her cheeks and dig her toes into the ground as though she was looking for a buried corpse six-feet under her.

"Damn it all." She cursed to herself, vehement bitterness dripping from her tone like saliva. Though the skies had darkened already and the sun had been swallowed by the horizon, Harry's perspective seemed much bleaker in comparison to her surroundings. The next thing she did, she got up to her feet, kicking off any excess dirt that had gathered beneath the soles of her shoes, and grasped the closest object she could throw; an old liquor bottle she found resting by the trunk of the pole by the swing set. Quite convenient.

With her arm raised as far back as she was physically able to, she threw it up in the air and allowed the bottle to slip from her grasp and she stood and watched as the object went flying several feet in the distance until it disappeared from view. She was left there with a couple of heavy breaths, feeling no relief but experiencing a sense of satisfaction she had seldom been allowed to enjoy as of recently.

She spent the last minute there in silence, standing, trying her best not to let her anger get in the way of her reason. However, her attempts were ultimately proven to be in vain as she knotted her hands into fists and shouted at the top of her lungs, " _DAMN IT ALL_!" All sense of frustration and irritability had managed to gather up into one large ball within her chest, like a black beast aching to finally get released of the prison which was her bones. She had not experienced something like that since the moment she watched her godfather disappear through the veil.

That's the moment when she felt the beast first make its grand appearance, breaking through her bones and latching itself onto a target; Lestrange herself. She who had killed Sirius. Harry wanted to make her suffer as she herself had suffered herself. Hadn't Voldemort interfered, Harry couldn't have imagined what that beast would have made her do. She could still feel the phantom pain on her skin after that ordeal between her, Voldemort, and Dumbledore had occurred, experience the glass shards scar her body, feel the pain of Voldemort entering her body and mind simultaneously. He had basically _raped_ her. Forced her to endure the hell she thought her mind had abandoned long ago.

And what had really happened after that? _Nothing_. No punishments were delivered other than the few Death Eaters that were incarcerated into Azkaban, no people were held directly responsible for Sirius' death, nothing happened to those who were to blame. All Fudge got was a reassigned seat in the Ministry. _Nothing else_. Sirius had died with no body to enter a casket, there was held no funeral other than a meeting where each member of the Order spoke of him as they remembered him. She couldn't even face Lupin properly after that happened, and for that, she had left him to suffer alone as well. What a hypocrite she was.

And for what had happened, Harry found herself harbouring resentment towards everyone at that moment. _Everyone_. Even people she loved, she found some traits that were deemed exasperating to the point where she wanted to throw bottles at them. She hated Voldemort, who was ultimately the main cause behind so much of her suffering. She hated that _bitch_ Bellatrix Lestrange for killing Sirius and torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom to the brink of insanity. She hated the Dursleys for all of their fuelled hatred towards her just because of her parents, which she also hated Snape for; he was a grown child who simply could not mature and stop himself from comparing her to her father. She hated Sirius for being absent in her life, even if the blame was not his to take, for which reason she hated that idiot Cornelius Fudge. She hated the Weasleys for behaving so warmly towards her even if she did not deserve any of their love. She hated Ron and Hermione for leaving her alone in that hellhole even though they could not prevent it. She hated Dumbledore for leaving her there in the first place. She hated her mother and father for dying for her.

 _But most of all, she hated **herself**! If she hadn't been born, then none of them would have needed **to die** for her! **FOR A SELFISH CHILD LIKE HER!**_

She stopped. "What am I saying?" she uttered quietly to herself, eyes widened as the realization of what she had just been thinking came crashing down at her in an instant, making her stomach churn from the inside and creating a nauseous feeling that had her fall to her knees in order to keep herself from vomiting. Although her attempt was a success, and nothing escaped her mouth other than a few drops of saliva, the sensation which lingered behind felt even worse to confront than the nearly non-existent dinner in her stomach.

How could she have been so _**SELFISH**_ as to claim that she hated everyone, even the people she loved? Hatred towards someone like Voldemort or Lestrange was warranted and understandable, but towards the _Weasleys_? Towards _Sirius_? Towards her own _parents_? The Weasleys, the ones who had showed her nothing but love since the day they first met? And Sirius, who had desperately wanted to be her caretaker since the day her father died? And her _parents_ , who had both sacrificed their own lives so that she might have one of her own?

And there she stood, having just cursed all of their names. What a truly _**SELFISH**_ _ **CHILD**_ she had been. Perhaps everything Uncle Vernon allowed to spill out of his mouth wasn't all falsehood and insults.

 _ **She truly was a SELFISH CHILD.**_

"I'm sorry." She mumbled, volume barely above a whisper. Tears began to fill her eyes, the same eyes she had inherited from her mother, and the thought of that filled her with even more guilt and shame. " _I'm sorry_."

She thought she was suffering there alone, without the presence of someone else. It was more preferable that way because nobody would have seen her so vulnerable, so broken, so alone as she was then and there. She couldn't think a few times where she recalled having displayed such a variety of emotions. The only exception she could think of that was relevant to this case was the incident at Professor Dumbledore's office, where she acted out like a child having been denied access to whatever her heart desired then and there. The comparison wasn't as exaggerated as it seemed, on second thoughts; she had been denied the prospect of a life with Sirius as her true godfather and caretaker, all because she had simply been too impulsive to listen to reason when Hermione and Ron told her that perhaps Kreacher was scheming with something when he told them of Sirius' supposed whereabouts.

 _That fucking house-elf!_

"Well, if that wasn't quite an interesting display."

That thought quickly discarded her as soon as the voice of someone else, someone unknown, reached her ears. In an instant, Harry's body reacted by discarding all the tears that threatened to come to view and getting up on her feet again, wand drawn out from the inside of her pocket and aimed towards the source of the voice. That flicker of melancholy that had previously established itself on her features changed into wariness and caution, masking itself as anger and ferocity in the view of the unwanted companion.

"Who's there?" Harry demanded, never once lowering her guard as she waited for the stranger to speak up again. As a consequence of the darkened area, she had trouble spotting anyone behind the bushes or anyplace nearby, regardless of how many times she shifted her stance in a vast attempt to locate them. No voice was heard, only the wind that had suddenly begun to pick up, causing the bushes and the trees to brush against each other and warrant more noises.

When a minute or so passed with no response, Harry began to wonder whether it had just been a voice produced from her own mind as a result of the tension that was assaulting her nerves. Had she imagined things? If so, then it wouldn't be too far-fetched as she was no stranger to hearing voices in her own head, be it that of snakes or _someone else_. It would make sense for this to be one of those occasions, though she was pretty sure that snakes weren't too common to spot in Little Whinging.

Then suddenly, something moved in the bushes, and a man stepped out of them, causing Harry to raise her wand again and aim it at the approaching stranger. Despite trying to seem as intimidating as possible, she found the shivers running up her skin to be unnerving as she soon came to realize that the stranger was, by no possible means, short of height. In fact, he was quite the opposite, and it seemed as though that, despite the fact that there were quite a few feet standing between Harry and the stranger, he towered over her well over a few inches, but the darkness kept the details of his features and appearance overshadowed.

A chuckle escaped the throat of the man, as if he was entertained by being held at wand-point. "I was under the impression that that underaged kids weren't allowed to use magic outside of school," he supposed, making Harry discover how raspy and deep his voice sounded. The closer he got, the more she could make out of his appearance, but most of his face remained a mystery. All she could make out at that shortened distance were two, yellow orbs. "but, it looks like you're no stranger to that, little lady."

A wizard? Here in Little Whinging? "Exceptions can be made," Harry heard herself mutter aloud, her wand held so tightly it seemed like it was on the verge of snapping in half. "And I call being approached by a stranger on a playground in the middle of the evening an appropriate occasion, wouldn't you agree?"

The stranger laughed again, no less amused than earlier though it seemed like he was a bit more … enthralled than anything else at the moment. Harry could make out an open dark-grey robe that resembled more a trench coat than a religious accommodation, outside of a grey shirt that wasn't entirely buttoned up and therefore exposed the skin surrounding his neck and collarbone, where numerous of old scars and could be seen. Black pants seemed appropriate, given his choice of attire, and shoes that seemed like they had previously belonged to someone in the army.

"You're not a meek one, are you, little lady?" the stranger inquired slyly, leaning his head a bit forth as to inspect her for any signs that would prove him wrong, regarding his assumption of her. Harry continued to hold her ground, determined to prove the stranger right, but the moment his face finally reached her notice, her eyes grew a few inches wide and the vigorousness left her features and became replaced with an expression of surprise and ambiguity.

He was old, but not old to the extent to where he seemed ancient. Late twenties to early thirties at most, but that wasn't the point. The man's face was filled with old scratched that indicated a life filled with hardships and struggles but had by no means mauled him to the point where he seemed disfigured in an unspeakable way. His hair was in a dark silvery colour and long but was kept in a low ponytail that barely reached the brink of his shoulders.

The man seemed to notice her fixation on his features and his lips curled into a grin which displayed teeth that bore uncanny resemblances to those belonging to a canine, much to Harry's unease. "Like what you see, little lady?" he asked in a playful sort of way. "Won't kill anyone to admit it."

She said nothing to respond to his inquiry but took a considerable step in retreat the moment their lack of distance began to unnerve her. The man stood still and didn't move a step, but the grin lasted for longer than she deemed comfortable. "Scared of me?" he asked, feigning disappointment. "I won't bite."

"That's the least of my problems at the moment." she responded with, still keeping her wand raised.

The man shifted his focus from her to the wand in front of him. "You better lower your wand, little lady." He said, although sounding no less intrigued. "It'll look suspicious in case those nosey Ministry-people show up."

Harry found herself raising a deadpan eyebrow. "And a grown man showing up in a children's park in the middle of the evening with an underage witch _won't_ look suspicious?"

He held his arms up, shrugging. "Fair point, I'll give you that."

"On another note," Harry spoke as she sighed, lowering her shoulders. "Who are you? What would a wizard do here in Little Whinging of all places?"

"Can't you ask yourself the same question?" the man inquired instead, lowering his arms again and stuffing them into the pockets of his robe. "What would the famous _Harriet Potter_ do in a muggle-inhibited area when there are so many witches and wizards that would simply _adore_ having the _Girl-Who-Lived_ with them?"

As soon as he said this, Harry's breath froze, and she glared at the man before her, wand practically begging her to shoot him with some kind of defensive spell (consequences be damned). "How do you know who I am? More importantly, how did you know where to find me? Few people do."

Much to her dismay, the man only smiled and proceeded to take a step towards her. "I'd be a fool not to recognize the face of Harriet Potter," he said. "You're quite a thing in the Daily Prophet as of lately. How you fought the Dark Lord in the Ministry of Magic, told that pink toad Umbridge where to shove it. She's been a pain for some time now." He seemed genuinely distasteful as he pronounced the words related to the pink terror, which the Potter girl could relate to.

Harry lowered her wand and struggled not to sigh again. "With hindsight, I suddenly remember another reason why I even bothered to come back here to Little Whinging. Much more peace from those damn idiots in the Prophet." She muttered irritably to herself, placing a hand on top of her head as to cease an oncoming headache from appearing. Then something hit her, and she turned back again with her wand raised. "But that doesn't answer my question. Who are you and how did you know where to find me? Are you with the Ministry?"

Although that grin of his lingered on top of his lips, the stranger seemed oddly colder as the Ministry's supposed association with him was vocalized aloud, though it was evident that he tried very hard as not to make it visible for her to notice. He failed at it, but she didn't say anything about it. He took a deep breath through his nostrils and let out a sharp exhale before he spoke again. "I may be a lot of things, but don't think for a moment that I'm associated with those high-and-mighty fuckers there in the Ministry."

Surprised to hear him speak so vehemently cold for the first time since they first met, Harry was caught off-guard by the fact that she had already begun to make assumptions of what kind of person he was when he was a stranger to her. She tilted her head slightly to the side. "Doesn't sound like you're on too good terms with the Ministry, correct me if I'm wrong?"

The man scoffed. "You'd think they'd want anything to do with a werewolf, even if I did put my services at their disposal?"

"You're a werewolf?" Harry asked, not sounding too surprised. It did make sense, in a way, but she didn't wish to put it all in conclusion due to his attire, but his eyes and teeth probably contributed a bit.

"You don't sound disgusted."

"I don't harbour a grudge towards werewolves like most tend to do." She admitted unashamed.

"I suppose that _Lupin_ fellow has a part in it?"

Harry's eyes widened slightly. "You know him?"

The stranger shrugged again, indifferent. "You can say we're old friends, me and him."

His tone wasn't as convincing as he made it out to be, which he didn't. Despite her reluctance, Harry lowered her wand but didn't put it completely away. If the man knew of Remus, then he probably couldn't be too bad, she assumed. In any case, she kept her wand close in her grip. "What's your name?" she asked again.

He let out yet another chuckle, though it was not identical to the ones he had previously produced. "Curious thing, aren't you?"

Harry snorted. "I find it hard to trust people who cannot even tell me their names."

"Would you trust me even if I told you?" he suggested sardonically, raising a hand (Harry realized his nails resembled claws).

"No, I wouldn't."

He inclined his head towards her, looking down at her like a beast looking down upon its prey. "So, there wouldn't really be a difference even if I told you."

A sensation of apathy coursed through her at the sound of this, but she intended to develop it. "The entire population of Great Britain knows my name, but I don't even trust a quarter of them. Don't assume I don't trust you due to different circumstances. You're all the same."

Unbeknownst to her, the Potter girl had ignited a flame of fury within the man. "That offends me to a certain extent." He admitted, a growl escaping his throat which didn't go unnoticed by the Potter girl, but her face remained void of any distinguished emotions that would make predicting her perspective on the situation easier. She had just insulted him, and with insults came impulsive and rashness. She knew as much from experience.

She allowed a weak smile to come to view, knowing she had hit a spot. "Tell me your name, then maybe I can find another reason to mistrust you."

The grin returned to sight again. "Is that a promise?"

"That depends on whether your answer is satisfying."

He let out a snicker and lowered his head, as if thinking about what answer would be suitable other than the truthful one. His eyes closed for a brief moment before they reopened again, and his yellow eyes met hers again. " _Fenrir_."

Harry raised both of her eyebrows. "Fenrir? As the giant wolf?" She scoffed. "Talk about ironic."

The stranger seemed surprised by this. "Quite knowledgeable towards mythology, are you?"

Harry shrugged. "To a certain extent. I like reading whenever I get the chance, and one of the books I read one time regarded Loki and his offspring: the wolf, the serpent, and the woman who was both dead and alive. Though I suppose the latter would've suited you quite nicely in terms of clothing." For the first time since the ordeal began, Harry let out a brief but pronounced chuckle. It didn't last, but it was a genuine one. One that caught both the werewolf and the young witch by surprise.

As if the status of the situation suddenly struck her again, Harry focused back on the stranger again, all traces of her earlier frivolity were gone. "Is that your real name?"

"What makes you think I'm lying?" he asked, tilting his head slyly to the side.

"I don't know, maybe the fact that a werewolf has the name _Fenrir_?" Harry suggested rhetorically, walking over to the seat and placing herself down on it, never letting go of her wand although she didn't quite find a reason to use it anymore. This individual seemed much less intimidating than a lot of other people she knew, although she would be lying if she said that there wasn't something about him she found unnerving. For the latter reason alone, she her grip remained on the wand.

She could feel the werewolf's eyes linger on her. "Have you found a reason yet to distrust me, little lady?" There was a hint of amusement lingering on the back of his words.

"Other than the way you keep your hair, I would say no. But I don't trust many people these days, much less someone who just came to a playground at this hour."

"Well, at least that's better than the rest of these idiots we find ourselves surrounded by each day," he growled, buckling his knees beneath himself as to sit on the ground, having apparently grown tired of standing all the time.

Harry grew confused. "You were offended by being compared to the rest pf the population?"

"It would be a tad hypocritical of me to be that, considering how I have a tendency to categorize people that aren't from my lot, but _yes_."

"You mean other werewolves?"

"I mean people like _me_."

"There are other people like you, aren't there?"

"There are no one like me, little lady. _No one_."

She raised an eyebrow, prepared to question his statement, but soon shut her mouth when she realized that he had a point. There were no people that were alike to oneself, no matter how similar they may have seemed. "I suppose not."

Harry couldn't quite comprehend the situation anymore. One moment, she was holding a werewolf at wand-point, armed and prepared to attack if needed. Another, she was engaging in a conversation with him. She couldn't place a name on it, but she found herself actually enjoying the conversation she had unknowingly established with the werewolf, albeit she was still reluctant to trust him not to kill her. However, it was the most stable conversation she had had so far over the course of the summer. Neither Uncle Vernon nor Aunt Petunia made up for many conversations with her, and although she had managed to get on civil terms with Dudley over the summer, they were still incapable of having the sort of conversations you would expect from cousins who had grown up together.

"But you still haven't answered me," she continued as the matter she mentioned previously came up again in her head. "Why would a wizard like yourself just happen to stumble in the same muggle-inhibited neighbourhood the _famous Harriet Potter_ coincidently resided in?" The word 'famous' which was accompanied by her name had her feel tempted to gag again, but she refrained.

The next thing that happened caused Harry to instinctively lean back as Fenrir got slightly up to his feet and began to lean closer towards her, licking his teeth. "Maybe I was looking for a _snack_?" he suggested lecherously, getting up to his full height and leaning down towards her on the swing set little by little. Harry gulped and dug her feet into the ground, trying to lean as far away from him as she could, fear coursing through her all of the sudden. Judging by his change of expression from slightly benevolent to ravenous, Fenrir truly appeared as a vicious beast at this range.

"They say that you're supposed to be invincible," he spoke lowly. "That you've defeated the Dark Lord on numerous occasions and therefore is undefeatable. Maybe I'm curious and want to put it to the test?" By then, Fenrir had gotten so close that if Harry let her toes slip, she would fall straight into his chest. Her hands (even with the right one holding her wand) held tightly onto the ropes attached to the swing, her back was pressed against the swing and could back no further, and her face was inches away from the werewolf's, which peered down at her from above her. She was standing so close that she could hear his breathing, make out the scent it produced. It was foul, like raw meat.

Somehow, being closer to a werewolf in human form seemed much more terrifying now than it ever did whenever she was with Lupin.

But this wasn't Lupin.

Fenrir's hand suddenly gripped her around the throat, not harshly but enough for her to experience the painful pressure she was well-acquainted with. Having been held on chokehold numerous of times by Dudley's friends when she was younger, she was no stranger towards the sensation of being strangled but was oddly surprised to figure out that the werewolf's grip was far from as vigorous as Piers' or Dudley's other friends had been. You would imagine a werewolf's grip would have been much harsher, but the reality was startling, especially for someone who seemed as intimidating as Fenrir did.

"Are you scared?" he asked, flicking his thumb up beneath her chin as to have her face up towards him. Harry obliged and gazed up at him, expecting to see some traces of cruelty on his features, but found none of the sorts. Though he was still grinning like he always did, he was looking at her in a sincere way which rivalled many of those who had seen her previously within such close proximity. _Sincerity_. That was a trait that was seldom displayed in her presence by people who barely knew her.

"Of dying?" she asked. "No."

"Oh?" Fenrir asked, intrigued and curious at the same time. "Most people tend to."

"But none of them are not like me. I've already seen death." She closed her eyes. "I've seen people die,"

 _THEY WERE STANDING IN A DARK AND OVERGROWN GRAVEYARD. SOMEONE CARRYING WHAT LOOKED LIKE A BUNDLE OF ROBES IN HIS ARMS APPROACHED THEM, THEN SUDDENLY HER SCAR BURST WITH PAIN. FROM FAR AWAY, ABOVE HER HEAD, A VOICE SCREECHED " **AVADA KEDAVRA**!". THERE WAS A BLAST OF GREEN LIGHT AND SHE WATCHED AS CEDRIC'S BODY FELL LIMP BESIDE HER. DEAD._

 _HARRY SAW THE LOOK OF MINGLED FEAR AND SURPRISE ON HER GODFATHER'S WASTED, ONCE-HANDSOME FACE AS HE FELL THROUGH THE ANCIENT DOORWAY AND DISAPPEARED BEHIND THE VEIL. SHE COULD HEAR BELLATRIX LESTRANGE'S TAUNTING LAUGHTERS AS LUPIN TRIED TO KEEP HARRY FROM RUNNING AFTER HER._

She took a deep breath, knotting her hands into fists around the ropes. "I've caused someone to die."

 _SHE LOOKED AROUND TO SEE QUIRRELL HUNCHED IN PAIN, HIS FACE CRUMBLING AS THOUGH HE WAS MADE OF MARBEL. IN A MATTER OF SECONDS, HE HAD COLLAPSED INTO A STACK OF DUST ON THE GROUND._

"To say that I am invincible would be falsehood and lies. I cannot stand lies. I'm not immortal, nor will I ever be." She forced herself to gaze back up at the werewolf, her eyes were sharpened. "The thing is, it would be _unbearably easy to kill_ _me_. Many people have tried, but they've all failed because of their pride or incompetence. Now, however, my life is at your disposal. I'm unarmed." On cue, she simply threw her wand away, caring less about what would happen to it. "So, by all means;" She growled at him, gritting her teeth and glaring vehemently at the werewolf. " _Bite. Me."_

Damned be Dumbledore's words. Damned be Voldemort. Damned be that prophecy. If there was a way for her to finally be rid of the shit that had occurred to her, the majority of her being wanted it to just be over with. Her mind was a mess, her life was a mess. What was there actually left for her to live for? A family that wasn't hers to claim? Friends that were better off with her gone? What kind of person would she be if she accepted those things like the _**SELFISH CHILD**_ she was?

She felt her strength leave her and she looked down, eyes fixated on the ground beneath her with an expression so dull that it could bore even the Devil. "Please," she heard herself mumble quietly at a volume that could barely rival a whisper. "Get it over with already."

Did she expect him to keep his words by saying that he wanted to eat her? Not necessarily. The term was exaggerated, even for a werewolf, and she was too skinny to even be considered edible even if someone did desire her flesh for something like that. However, given the desperation she found herself with, she could care less. But if one thing was certain, given the circumstances, she truly did desire….

Something soft suddenly hit her nose, prompting her to look up again.

"'course it's easy to realize you're not invincible." Fenrir said, wiping what looked like a filthy napkin across her nose where the dried blood. "Someone who bleeds from a simple punch to the face can hardly be considered strong, much less invincible." If one thing was for certain, Harry could feel a blush creep up on her as a result of this unexpectedness. Aunt Petunia could care less if Harry's leg was broken, much less a bleeding nose, so this most certainly was not something she had anticipated from a stranger.

Fenrir took a few more careful swipes beneath her nose with the rag before he pulled it back into his pocket, seemingly content with the lack of blood present on her face. Harry pulled her hand across her nose to inspect from any blood traces herself, but when she found none, she hesitantly looked up at him, uncertain of what to actually say. "Uhm… thank you?"

The werewolf took a few steps back, providing Harry with enough space to get off the swing and properly onto her feet again. She had barely managed to take a few steps forward before he barked a laugh, much to Harry's confusion and exasperation. She raised an eyebrow at him as she watched him collect himself.

"What's so amusing?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Never seen a nosebleed before?"

"I'm surprised that the Girl-Who-Lived, who's been through hell and back, is really just a soft little pet." He admitted with his infamous smile, displaying his canine-like teeth once again, though she found them less intimidating this time.

She feigned a laugh, being really less than amused by his display of dark humour. "For your information; I haven't experienced Hell. I've experienced the world, and let me tell you, it's a lot more sinister place than some hole in the ground."

"Been there, done that." The next thing that happened was that Harry felt a hand on top of her head, as though someone was praising her like a child having accomplished something. She shot a glare up at the werewolf, but only to see him looking _sincerely_ down at her, prompting her to keep silent and listen. "But seriously, there's no way you're dying just yet, little lady. Not when things are about to get interesting." And with that, Fenrir stepped back and turned around, prepared to walk away. He only made it a few steps before he stopped, bent down to reach for something on the ground, then proceeded to throw something in her direction.

On instinct, Harry reached for it and caught it, quickly discovering that it was her wand.

"Thanks, Fenrir."

There was a moment of silence before it was broken again, this time by Fenrir, who had turned and was now grinning at her again. "You're not finished yet, little lady. Don't make everything so tedious by dying so easily. That's not entertaining at all. At least make a bit of an effort to live if you're about to get killed. Much more fun that way. As for your question,"

Finding herself uncertain about the meaning of his words, Harry opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he beat her to it.

"It's not uncommon for me to catch the scent of someone who stinks, but to catch such a sweet scent as yours is not … so common for someone like me."

And like that, Fenrir disappeared, leaving Harry there alone in the playground. In silence, she returned to that wretched place she called home, but with less resentment filling her being now. Neither Uncle Vernon's complaints about her being late or Aunt Petunia's demands that she had failed to do her chores could fill her with enough resentment to tell them to shove it up an unmentionable place.

One thing changed within Harry that day. She no longer wished to die and leave her loved ones behind. Fenrir was right that it would be unbearably tedious with her already dead, and she was not about to leave Lord Voldemort with no fun. The bastard had something coming, and it would come with storm.

On another note, a few days later, news reached Number Four like they always did. Apparently, Piers Polkiss and his friends had all winded up at the hospital; having apparently been ambushed by some vicious animal. Though it terrified the Dursleys that some rabid animal was lose, Harry only relaxed in the flowers beneath the window after hearing this, unconcerned. "Maybe I should distrust him because of his lack of taste in victims," She thought sarcastically.

If her life was the cause of so much calamities, then she would gladly stick around just to watch Voldemort suffer.


End file.
